Abstrakt
After the political changes of late 1980s and early 1990s, not only societies but also historical sciences of Central European countries started 'returning to Europe' or 'reverting to the normal state of affairs'. In historiography, this meant a return to a plurality of methodologies but also institutions and journals.
This was supposed to make Czech humanities, too, 'comparable' or 'competitive' - at least within the European stage. This contribution argues that three decades after the abovementioned changes, the expectations have been met only to a limited extent.
The hypothetically free competition of ideas and concepts seems to sustain or even deepen various economic and cultural inequalities. Moreover, where there are no supranational public institutions and publication platforms, one can seriously doubt equal access to the playing field in which this competition takes place.
Historiography is thus not a universalist science, and that holds not only from the perspective of countries of the 'Third World', as post-colonial criticism had shown, but also in relation to Eastern and Central Europe. This article does not seek a solution in strategic essentialism that would place the specific experience of countries of this region above historiographic standards and values.
Instead, it argues that the way out leads through uncomfortable self-awareness we should deploy to confront the various epistemological but even 'operational' assumptions and starting points of any historiography from various perspectives.